There are three levels to the brownstone. Dalma and I have our bedrooms on the ground floor where we also have access to a small backyard plus our own private entrance, though we don’t really use it because that hallway is practically a storage unit with bins and boxes and furniture that Dalma plans on refreshing for her room but hasn’t gotten around to it. The whole thing is a fire hazard, honestly, and something we should correct ASAP. Dayana, Floyd, and Dahlia have their bedrooms upstairs, and there’s also a ladder that leads to the rooftop, where I do my tanning and sunburning.

I lead Valentino through the middle floor and into our living room.

“This place is so nice,” Valentino says.

He stops by the wall that has all our family pictures. I love all the casual ones, but I don’t really get involved with the professional photo shoots at JCPenney because I always feel like an add-on. Almost like they know they have to invite me so I don’t feel weird even though there’s no evidence that they’re thinking shit like that, I get nothing but love from my guardians. I just know that if I weren’t living here, I wouldn’t be invited to the studios. So why should I go just because they were forced to take me in? This is something I’m going to be working through for years if I get years to work through things.

Valentino taps my school picture from fifth grade where I wasn’t smiling. “Bad day?”

“First school picture without my parents,” I say.

“That’ll do it.”

I had missed picture day in fourth grade because I was out grieving. My mom really loved dressing me up those mornings. Ironing my shirts and making me look grown with ties and spritzing my curls with a personal remedy to give them extra shine. When the samples arrived for my fifth-grade pictures, I sat down with Dayana and let her choose her favorite out of all the different poses—fist under chin, arms crossed, a forced smile, and straight-faced.

“This one feels honest,” Dayana had said, choosing the picture up on the wall.

I liked that we weren’t bullshitting, especially since that particular picture day was a week after the one-year-anniversary of my parents’ death.

There are footsteps coming from upstairs, and I immediately know it’s Floyd, who walks around the house as if he’s got brick feet. Floyd is in a polo and jeans that are buckled up with the same black belt he uses for all his baggy pants. His brown hair is gelled like usual, even though Dalma woke up everyone in the middle of the night to drive back home before my surgery.